Wednesday, October 8, 2008

real big trophy

can somebody who is good at drawing draw me a drawing of a minivan swarmed with flies, i mean swarmed so tightly you can hardly tell its a minivan anymore, i would like the flies to have lots of colors and be of different sizes, if someone did this and did it well i would find a way to compensate them i would draw a painting with my dick at least

one time i really did a painting with my dick, i painted on a large thick cardstock sheet i got at walmart really late one night, i often used to go to walmart alone and look around, i did not feel strange, i like the TVs they leave on silent in a long row, i like how you can just keep walking in one kind of light for as long as you want and you don't have to talk to anyone, when i did the painting i had on this song on a john zorn record where this man and woman are screaming at each other in a violent manner, i painted with my semi erect penis, at other times it was full i'm sure, i am sorry for telling you this i just thought about it, the painting wasn't very good, it did have a lot of color going for it, i'll tell you that, i still have it somewhere, maybe it could be brought to public auction, then i'd have enough money to buy a staplegun again

i am feeling destructive today i think i am going to give up something i love

OR AT LEAST SOMETHING I LIKE A LITTLE

this crying buddha statue looks like he is giving himself head

i think a lot about the painting of the raped woman inside the guns n roses album that eventually got edited out, i remember a kid in my class showing me the picture on our way to see the king ramses exhibit of all the stuff his family or whoever had thought would be good to have around him endless years

and i don't want to get inside of cars anymore

and i never feel clean shaven even right after i have shaved

today i said out loud that i understand why Wallace killed himself, i don't know why i thought i couldn't understand it, i understand it completely, i don't feel depressed because of or inside of saying that, i just understand why he could see the need to do it

typing is hard work

i think people i know in real life think i don't work very much

i am considering that when i finish the next novel i am working on, which will be a long while from now, that i will delete it, i had thought about just not sending it anywhere, but now i think i like the idea of deleting it entirely without backup, first when the first draft is done i want to spend 500-800 hours editing and making every line right with an excess tenacity in which i shirk to a large extent the other things in life i should be paying more attention to, i want to spend more time in the revision process than i have spent on all other things of me combined, and then when it is done, then when it is exactly as i wanted and new, drag it to the trashcan and hear the computer make the crinkle sound as it is permanently erased

the sound of that sound might be the greatest thing in life

or that might really be exciting

like finding a room off the first legend of zelda where there is a window to an all blue room with a table set for dinner in it, and then you eat

or like a duck who winks and lifts his wing to reveal a woman

and how my cell phone keeps taking pictures of nothing, like several a day, so that when you go to look at the photo archive there are just all these little black squares and my cell phone's memory gets fat full and no one can send me messages, most of which i don't want anyway

I think your phone came over to my phone's house one night while we were both sleeping and fucked my phone and gave my phone an STD.

If you're going to delete your novel, at least print out a copy and then set it on fire and dance around your pyre of self-pity and self-loating wearing nothing at all but red paint all over your body and chant meaningless phrases like "no cash on delivery" or "fuck the police." At least do that.

What a fucking waste.

Jereme, you're wrong. No human emotion is unique. And it doesn't last either. But who cares?

There are things much more needing of destruction than literature, any literature.

Of course you're writing your book for yourself. Whoever says they write anything for anyone for themselves is full of shit and trying to look like a saint.

We want people to read what we write. We want our existences validated that way. And we should be generous in that. But for someone to say that they write for any reason but their own satisfaction is like a politician saying they will make unicorns alive again.

And I apologize, Jereme, even though I still construe what you say as spontaneous human feeling being unique.

you honestly think everyone writes purely for themselves? that seems a little wanting i think. i think many books, maybe even a majority, are written with others in mind. and that is not necessarily a bad thing. but it often is.

this getting too abstruse for me to think of what to say clearly. i really don't want to think anymore about intentions.

Of course they write with others in mind, but that is only so that they can write something that people will want to read, to achieve #s 1-3. Even writing for oneself is, in a way, writing for others, because the you reading is not the same you writing. But still, but still, this is all very self-destructive, which I do not think is productive, you are correct, Blake.

I like cats, and dogs. If they could read, I would write something for them.

But you are right: my "meaningless" could be different from your "meaningless."

But we are also defined by these parameters.

I guess you are freer than I am. Good job.

I do not want notoriety. I would like people to read something I wrote and feel connected to something bigger, as other authors have done from me. I do not think this is a crime, or arrogance. I am stupid and selfish, and the only way I can think of giving back to the world is by doing it like that.

Burning something you love without sharing it first for your own self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment is just as bad as people like me who write so that they can make money and people will love them and get them drunk and fucked.

What is the point of having something "perfect in your mind" if it is stuck there?

At the far end of town, where the grickle-grass grows, and the wind smells slow and sour when it blows, and no birds ever sing there, excepting old crows, is the street of the lifted lorax. And deep in the grickle-grass, some people say, if you look deep enough you can still see today where the Lorax once stood, just as long as it could, 'till somebody lifted the Lorax away. What was the Lorax and why was it there, and why was it lifted and taken somewhere, from the far end of town where the grickle-grass grows? The old oncler still lives here: ask him, he knows. You won't see the oncler - don't knock on his door. He stays in his lurkem on top of his store. He lurks in his lurkem, cold under the roof, where he makes his own clothes out of miff muffered moof. And on special dank midnights in August he peeks out of the shutters, and sometimes he speaks, and tells how the Lorax was lifted away. He'll tell you, perhaps, if you're willing to pay. At the end of a rope he lets down a tin pail and you have to throw in fifteen cents and a nail and the shell of a great, great, great grandfather snail. Then he pulls up the pail, makes a most careful count to see if you've paid him the proper amount. And he hides what you've paid him away in his snuvv, his strange, secret hole in his gruvulous glove. Then he grunts, "I will call you by whisper-ma-phone, for the secrets I tell are for your ears alone." SLUPP!!! Down slupps the whisper-ma-phone to your ear, and the old oncler's words are not very clear, since they have to come down through a snergally hose and he sounds as if he had smallish bees up his nose. "Now I'll tell you," he says, with his teeth sounding gray, "how the Lorax was lifted and taken away. It all started way back, such a long, long way back..." "Way back in the days when the grass was still green, and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean, and the songs of the Swami-swans rang out in space. One morning I came to this glorious place! "And I first saw the trees! The truffula trees! The bright-colored tufts of the truffula trees! Mile after mile in the fresh morning breeze! "And under the trees I saw brown barbaloots, frisking about in their barbaloot suits while they played in the shade and ate truffula fruits. >From the rippulous pond came the comfortable sound of the hummingfish humming while splashing around. But those trees, those trees, those truffula trees! All my life I'd been searching for trees such as these! The touch of their tufts was much softer than silk, and they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk! I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart. I knew just what I'd do! I unloaded my cart. In no time at all I had built a small shop. Then I chopped down a truffula tree with one chop, and with great skillful skill and with great speedy speed, I took the soft tuft - and I knitted a thneed! The instant I'd finished I heard a GAZUMP! I looked. I saw something pop out of the stump of the tree I'd cut down. It was sort of a man. Describe him? That's hard. I don't know if I can. He was shortish. And oldish. And brownish, and mossy. And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy: "Mister," he said, with a sawdusty sneeze, "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues, and I'm asking you sir, at the top of my lungs," he was very upset as he shouted and puffed, "what's that THING you've made out of my truffula tuft!!" "Look, Lorax," I said, "there's no cause for alarm. I chopped just one tree - I am doing no harm. I'm being quite useful: this thing is a thneed. A thneed's a fine something that all people need. "It's a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove, it's a hat. But it has other uses, yes, far beyond that! You can use it for carpets, for pillows, for sheets! For curtains, or covers for bicycle seats!" The Lorax said, "Sir, you are crazy with greed. There's no one on Earth who would buy that fool thneed!" But the very next minute I proved he was wrong. For just at that minute a chap came along, and he thought that the thneed I had knitted was great! He happily bought it for three ninety-eight. I laughed at the Lorax, "You poor stupid guy! You never can tell what some people will buy!" "I repeat!" cried the Lorax, "I speak for the trees!" "I'm busy," I told him, "shut up, if you please." I rushed 'cross the room and in no time at all, built a radiophone. I put in a quick call. I called all my cousins and uncles and aunts, and I said, "Listen here! Here's a wonderful chance for the whole Oncler family to get mighty rich! Get over here fast, take the road to North Nitch. Turn left at Weehawken, sharp right at South Stitch." And in no time at all, in the factory I built, the whole Oncler family was working full tilt. We were all making thneeds, just as busy as bees, to the sound of the chopping of truffula trees. Then oh, baby oh! How my business did grow! Now chopping one tree at a time was too slow! So I quickly invented my super-axe-hacker, which chopped down four truffula trees with one smacker! We were making thneeds four times as fast as before. And that Lorax? HE didn't show up any more. But the next week he knocked on my new office door. He said, "I'm the Lorax, who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the brown barbaloots, who played in the shade in their barbaloot suits, and happily lived, eating truffula fruits. "NOW thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough truffula fruit to go 'round. And my poor barbaloots are all getting the crummies because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies. They loved living here, but I can't let them stay. They'll have to find food, and I hope that they may. 'Good luck, boys!'" he cried, as he sent them away. I the Oncler was sad as I watched them all go. But business is business, and business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies, you know. I meant no harm, I most truly did not. But I had to get bigger, so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered my wagons, I biggered the loads of the thneeds I shipped out, I was shipping them forth to the south! To the east! To the west! To the north! I went rigth on biggering, selling more thneeds, and I biggered my money, which everyone needs. Then AGAIN he came back. I was fixing some pipes, when that old nusiance Lorax came back with MORE gripes. "I am the Lorax." he coughed and he whiffed. He sneezed and he snargled. He snuffled. He sniffed. "Oncler!" he cried with a cruffulous croak, "Oncler, you're making such smogulous smoke! My poor Swami-swans, why, they can't sing a note! No one can sing who has smog in his throat! "And so," said the Lorax (please pardon my cough,) "they cannot live here, so I'm sending them off. Where will they go? I don't hopefully know. They may have to fly for a month or a year, to escape from the smog you/ve smogged up around here! "What's more," snapped the Lorax (his dander was up,) "let me say a few words about gluppity-glup. You're machinery chugs on day and night without stop making gluppity-glup. Also sloppit-slop. And what do you do with this leftover goo? I'll show you, you dirty old Oncler man, you! "You're glumping the pond where the hummingfish hummed. No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed! So I'm sending them off: oh, their future is dreary! They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary, in search of some water that isn't so smeary - I hear things are just as bad up at Lake Erie! And then I got mad. I got terribly mad. And I yelled at the Lorax, "Now listen here, dad! All you do is yap-yap and say bad,bad,bad,bad! Well I have my rights sir, and I'm telling you I intend to go on doing just what I do! And for your information, you Lorax, I'm figuring on biggering, and biggering, and biggering, and BIGGERING. Turning MORE truffula trees into thneeds, which everyone, everyone, EVERYONE needs! Then at that very instant we heard a loud WHACK! >From out in the fields came the sickening smack of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall. THE VERY LAST TRUFFULA TREE OF THEM ALL! No more trees, no more thneeds, no more work to be done, and in no time my uncles and aunts, every one, had waved me good-bye. They jumped into my cars, and drove away under the smoke-smuggered stars. Then all that was left 'neath the bad-smelling sky was my big empty factory, the Lorax, and I. The Lorax said nothing - just gave me a glance. Just gave me a sad, sad backward glance as he lifted himself by the seat of the pants. And I'll never forget the grim look on his face as he heisted himself and took leave of this place through a hole in the smog without leaving a trace. And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, I've worried and worried and worried away. Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, I've worried about it with all of my heart. "BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better - it's not. So...CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. "It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! "You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. And truffula trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new truffula - treat it with care. Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. Grow a forest - protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!"

I don't think it's good to burn stuff. I wish Simone hadn't. She's good. She was being too hard on herself, as humans so often are. I hate that. I'm really mad at Sylvia Plath's hubby for burning the last six months of her diaries. Really mad about that.

I still think burning your own stuff is bad. What do you know about you?

Once I had this writer say to me about a ms I gave him- this is bad writing, and the guy was my FREN- and so I thought he was right. Ten years later, for the fuck of it, I sent some of it out, I got some chapters of it published and everyone freaked on me they liked it so much. Like, where was THIS? So, you know? Who knows? Don't burn things.

Yes, you made my point. You cannot 'describe' what you feel without language, however, you remember and recognize the feeling without those precious words

i will put it in other terms

The sun rose this morning around 6:45am. A sparrow perching on a branch near my window serenaded the sun at day's first blush. The song was purposeless. It was not to attract females or ward off predators. The little sparrow sang because it was a sparrow and it was dawn

Language is unnecessary to feel, remember or recognize the personal unique emotions of singing in the sun light at dawn

Language would be needed if the sparrow wanted to convey its feelings to others

But it would only be a description, not the actual emotions

Ego is the motivation behind language. the sparrow has no ego. Its emotions are pure

I think writers (the human race in general) are like great white sharks. The great white has no predator, feared greatly among man and beast, constructed stout and strong

He carves through the ocean with a glib swagger. He thinks 'i'm a bad motherfucker', 'i alone am best', 'i am strong and invincible', 'hahahaha'

The shark is arrogant and ignorant. What he fails to realize is a simple concept. He exists because the ocean tolerates his existence. The ocean has seen his kind surge and break within its confinement. The ocean knows no shark is special and countless more will blossom and decay until it evaporates into nothingness

I like what you said about giving. Giving or 'true love' is always outwards. This is a good concept

I will convey honesty though, you are a liar. If your intent is truly to 'give', why not write until death and publish everything anonymous posthumous? Your ego would not permit an accomplishment of true giving

Michael, I'm addressing this with you, it is directed at every one

et al,

I think many are misconstruing the motivation behind destroying after completion

the purpose is not composed of good or bad

it is the path to revelation

'what if it is good writing! what if it is great writing'

it better be otherwise destruction holds no significance

seriously, what has any writer past, present, future written so profound to compete with the juggernaut of time?

look towards the sky tonight, stand there, study, analyze, try to comprehend the vastness of the swirling shit hanging over your head, every star, every planet, every millimeter of space where sound cannot exist, the inexplicable you deny every day

precious words cannot compete with the graveyard of stars and galaxies

time laughs at us

the written words are insignificant; the emotions will always be yours

true self-fulfillment is the greatest accomplishment any person can achieve

ego will muddle self-fulfillment

destroying your work is a tool to remove the ego

i think people need to start being honest and introspectively dissect the motivation of their literary desire. there are no altruistic goals